Undying Heroes
by nomadeagle
Summary: The Coalition Forces struggling to hold their first colony, Shanxi, from the turian forces, after losing their biggest advantage at the start of the siege. But the night is the darkest before the dawn, as reinforcements are already coming. One-shot, inspiried by the Planetside 2 'Death is no excuse' trailer.


**A/N: This idea came to mind, when I was taking a bit of a break from studying by watching the Planetside 2 trailer (for the upteenth time). Which could be unexplored territory if you found this fic from the Mass Effect angle (considering to my best knowledge it's not nearly as widely known as ME)**

**Planetside 2 is a Massively Multiplayer Online First-Person Shooter, in which players belonging to three human factions (Terran Republic, New Conglomerate and Vanu Sovereignty) fight on 4 extremly large islands (each 64 km^2 if i remember correctly). It's the only game multiplayer game I know of (or remember knowing of) that actually integrates the respawn mechanics into it's lore. Namely with the use of alien technology (Vanu being the name of the now long dead race).**

**This is a one-shot I have no plan of expanding into a complete story (but that could change :)), but feel free if you want to. Just send a PM my way so I can read it.**

**Those of you who read my other story 'The Road Not Taken', fear not I have not abandoned it. I just don't have much time to write due to exams, but I have the rough draft of the next few chapters.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

„_On this momentous day, I cannot help but remember how The Coalition started. I was just a simple VS Engineer, in one of the many days-long, three-way battles for Zurvan Amp Station. Tired of the constant fighting, forced on us by those, who didn't have to spend years of their life in constant battle, from the moment they joined the military until they got too old to fight – or by some miracle managed to get out._

_Resurrection technology may have always restored our bodies to health upon death, deposited us into the spawn chambers completely rested and ready to fight, but we still remembered everything that happened. It also didn't stop us from ageing. I spent over 20 years constantly fighting at that point, and I had enough._

_Had enough of the extremist leaders of the VS who wanted to force our views - of advancing humanity through science by augmentation and Vanu technology - on everybody. My fellow soldiers, who didn't realize how wrong forcing it on others that was. The NC soldiers, who didn't, _couldn't_ realize that they were not fighting for freedom for the people, but for the corporations, who provided their gear. Had enough of those loyal to the Republic until death, who failed to realize that their precious unity were enforced by oppression._

_I was surprised by a TR Medic in a strangely empty part of the complex, and after a brief struggle I had him on the ground a few feet from me, armed with only a knife and my sidearm pointed at him. Completely at my mercy. Yet I didn't pull the trigger. I could have given him another death to remember, but I couldn't. I lowered my gun and offered my hand to help him up, thinking I couldn't be the only one. _

_The only one, who saw the true reasons of the war - the truth behind the propaganda. The only one, who wanted, wished for the whole thing to end. The only one, who had enough of constantly dying in a war, which he had no desire to fight in._

_He grabbed my hand, I helped him up… and he promptly sunk his knife into my chest._

_Yet on this day he sits next to me as a good friend wearing a somewhat shameful smile._

_Any of you who serve, know how idiotic what I did was; but a few days later I got a message. Somehow he managed to track me down and contact me, asking why I did it. And I told him everything._

_And at that point the first seed of The Coalition was sown, and we continued fighting with a new feeling in our heart._

_Hope._

_Over time that seed began to grow, as we found more among our respective people who felt the same way, and even managed to find persons among the NC soldiers, who shared our views and spread our movement among them as well._

_And a few years later on the same day, every member of our movement on all three sides stood and declared: 'No more'._

_The rest, as they say, is history."_

_Former Legionary Shila Lake  
At the launch of the first Coalition starship_

* * *

General Williams looked down grimly at the tactical map showing the situation on Shanxi. It was not looking good.

Shanxi was founded a few years after the first starships were built, using Vanu FTL technology, which was used something called "Mass Effect". While it was capable of interstellar travel across nearby systems, it was far too slow to reestablish connection with Earth. This colony was the first, and in a way it was the first place where the Coalition was truly realized.

Back on Auraxis people were still separated, you could tell just by looking which faction someone was from. Here you actually had to ask, the clothes, their speech, even the life-philosophy of the people here were an amalgam of all three sides.

He didn't want to be the person to lose the planet, but he may have no choice, but to surrender, if things don't change. They had lost all the colony's Spawn Control Units to orbital bombardment, shortly after the Coalition fleet defending the planet was defeated.

While no soldiers were lost, as the device (the name of which he couldn't bother to remember right now) that 'caught' the consciousness of the dying was buried deep underground. But the Rebirthing Chambers still needed SCU-s close by, to transfer them into bodies. Without them he had an army of ghosts, and the situation was slowly getting from bad to worse. Should the reinforcements show up, they would definetly bring a ship capable providing respawn points for his, currently 'dead', troops, with ways to redeploy them planetside quickly, but without that he was quickly running out of options.

His musing were interrupted when his aide gave him a transcript of a message they just received. A wry smile crept on his face as he began to study a map with a different mindset. Time to do something crazy.

To pull it off he would need soldiers with high mobility, Light Assaults were probably his best bet. The question was did he still had ones experienced enough to pull it off. He didn't have a lot of soldiers on the planet who fought in the Long War, most of them only a short time near the end of it, and he would need the most experienced of them for this.

A squad of them caught his eye. Veterans of the war, even the least experienced had served 7 years in that hell. Their leader 11 years. If they couldn't pull it off in the time they had, then no one can.

"Get me Staff Sergeant Hackett's team."

* * *

At a different place on the same planet Lt. General Valerous studied a slightly different tactical map, with an entirely different feeling, satisfaction.

Their pacification of this race was going well. After some initial problems, they proceeded much easier after gaining orbital superiority and laying down some fire from above. He noticed a group of enemies on the map leaping off a nearby cliff before disappearing into the fray of the battle between his outdoor command center and said cliff.

He couldn't wrap his head around the fighting style of these people. Who in their right mind would think that strapping a rocket engine on a soldier's back is a good idea. He had known no other race, except the vorcha, who would charge into battle so recklessly.

Despite some amazing technologies, he could not wait to get his people hands on - as all of the aliens equipment actually dissolved a short time after the soldier carrying it died - he could feel their forces buckling. In a short time, they would have no choice, but to surrender or be completely destroyed.

He was drawn from his planning by a surprised shout from one of his nearby aids. Looking up he saw one of those soldiers with those jump packs on his back, holding onto a gunship falling towards the command center with one wing missing.

Fortunately the gunship reached the ground well before his position, with the alien jumping off using his packs at the last second. Unfortunately for him, they failed shortly after. He crashed into the ground with, what must have been a painful, _thump_. After a long tumble, which brought him somewhat near him, his weapons lay scattered way out of his reach, and he was surrounded by turian soldiers. He was in a situation where he had no chance.

He struggled to his hands and knees, and reached for a cylindrical device on the back of his belt just as he looked up. While he took a short look around, and realized his no doubt hopeless situation, their eyes met.

Instead of the defeated look he expected, the soldiers clear blue eyes burned with determination below the brown fur peaking out under his helmet. Valerous could see 'Hackett' - which probably was the soldiers name - on his armor along with the many small scars on his face and a long one going from the corner of his right eye to his upper lip. His lips slowly turned into a triumphant sneer, as he raised the cylinder into the air.

The turians nearby opened fire on him immediately, but couldn't stop him from smashing one of its end onto the ground. The device was in fact not a bomb, as many nearby soldier expected, instead it emitted a bright white column of light into the air while quickly burrowing into the earth to be harder to get to and disable. Clearly a beacon of some kind.

Valerous expected with dread to be shelled by long-range precision artillery fire, or something similar, but after a short while his dread turned to confusion as nothing happened. No precision artillery strikes, a drop-ship suddenly appearing, looking at the tactical map he couldn't even notice anything different in the nearby battle. There were no aggressive push towards the beacon, if anything they started focusing on defense.

A nearby display, showing status in orbit, began to shout warnings suddenly as several ships dropped out of FTL. His dread returned with vengeance as he realized, the brave soldier knew those ships would be arriving, and planted a beacon for an orbital strike. Before he had time to shout out the order to evacuate, the largest ship fired.

But instead a precision strike he expected, it launched thousands of small object. They were far larger and slower than a round, but they were headed towards the planet. As he looked around the battlefield he could see the light columns of other beacons activating among the enemy forces, and he knew.

They were not beacons for an orbital strike, but an orbital drop, and as he looked up he could see the last signs of reentry on the myriad of shapes heading down, quite a few heading directly his position.

Before they had time to react one of the pods slammed into the ground nearby, its hatches opening as a soldier stepped out, weapon raised. He dispatched two nearby turian before he turned towards the Lt. General, and Valerous... froze.

His mind was incapable processing the reality that faced him. He made no moves as the soldier raised his weapon at him, still unable to come to terms with what he was seeing.

He was completely mesmerized by the soldier's clear blue eyes below the brown fur peaking out under his helmet. The multitude of small scars across his face, with a long one spreading from the corner of his right eye to his upper lip. His armor proudly declaring the soldier's name to the world:

'Hackett'.

* * *

**A/N: I really hope I managed to write something passable, as I started writing it shortly after midnight, and it's now 4AM here.**

**Thank you for reading!**

**Reviews are greatly apprecieted!**

**I'm off to bed... Bye!**

**P.S.: Actually, I may write another chapter for this with similar lenght, but not guarantieed, so don't hold your breaths :)**


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